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When Ryerson University opens its student learning centre — a glass goliath being constructed at Yonge and Gould Streets — it will be a chance for the school to cater to commuter students by building “a home away from home.”

On a media tour of the 155,000-sq ft. construction site, set to transform the dreary corner where the famed Sam the Record Man store once sat, vice-president of administration and finance Julia Hanigsberg said the school is hoping the centre will encourage students to stay at Ryerson as long as possible.

“We have far fewer residence beds than we have first year students coming in every year, so that means lots of our students are coming from all over the GTA,” she says. “This creates an opportunity to give them a space where instead of rushing home after class they have a place on campus.”

Within the glass walls enclosing the centre, which will open next year, Hanigsberg says there will be casual seating, student work rooms, a café and a bridge to the campus library.

When students enter the eight-floor building, designed by Zeidler Partnership Architects of Toronto and Snøhetta of Oslo, Norway, they will be greeted with a multi-level space doubling as an “amphitheatre” for events.

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Subsequent floors will be outfitted with electrical outlets for laptops, informal meeting areas and rooms that students will be able to book for quiet study or group meetings.

The ground floor of the new Ryerson Student Learning Centre in Toronto on Wednesday. (Marta Iwanek / Toronto Star)

“The building gets quieter as you move up it and it starts to include more individual study space,” says Zeidler architect Vaidila Banelis.

In addition to quiet, independent areas, the school’s Digital Media Zone, an innovation incubator, will also claim some of the university’s prime real estate.

The building will cost $112 million — $45 million of which came from the province — and will provide panoramic views of the surrounding campus and a bustling Yonge Street.

For music lovers though, the new building might evoke flared tempers. In recent months, it triggered a battle between Ryerson and fans of the iconic Sam the Record Man sign, which Ryerson had originally promised to restore and rehang on the centre.

After concerns were raised about the university not honouring that promise, the city allowed the sign to be hung on a nearby building overlooking Yonge and Dundas Square.

Sheldon Levy, the school’s president and a champion of public space, faced fire over the sign, but Hanigsberg says “that is all behind us.”

“It’s all good news from here on in,” she says.

With Levy set to step down from his post in 2015, Hanigsberg says the building will be one of the school’s final ways to mark his legacy as a city builder. She noted he also supported expanding the school’s campus by remaking the the former Maple Leaf Gardens into Ryerson’s Mattamy Athletic Centre, further emblazoning Ryerson’s logo across the downtown core.

“When Sheldon was installed at Ryerson almost 10 years ago, part of his speech was talking about a face for Ryerson on Yonge Street and here that is being created,” she says. “It’s all about the students and citybuilding.”

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